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I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

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AN 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

PHILOCLEAN AND PEITHESSOPHIAN SOCIETIES 

OF 

RUTGERS COLLEGE, 

AT THE REQUEST OP THE PHILOCLEAN SOCIETY, 

3\]lj IStYi, 18ST: •, 

On the day preceding the annual commencement. 



BY DANIEL D. BARNARD, 




ALBANY: 

PRINTED BY HOFFMAN & WHITE. 
1837. 






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V 



CORRESPONDENCE 



New Brunswick, July 19, 1837. 
Hon. D. D. BARNARD— 

Sir : We have the honor to inform you that " the Philoclean Society of 
Rutgers College," at a meeting held on the 18th inst., passed a resolution by an 
unanimous vote, " tendering you their thanks for the eloquent Address delivered 
by you on that day before the Literary Societies of said College, and requesting 
you to furnish a copy for publication." 

Believing that your address is eminently calculated to exert a powerful and salu- 
tary influence over young men, and that its publication will be acceptable to the 
community at large, we respectfully ask permission to present it to the public. 
We remain, very respectfully. 

Your obd't serv'ts, 

ROB'T H. PRUYN, 
WM. H. STEELE, 
ROBERT VAN AMBURGH, 

Committee of Philoclean Society. 



Albany, July 29, 1837. 
GENTLEMEN— 

Permit me, through you, to return my sincere acknowledgments to my fel 
low members of the Philoclean Society of Rutgers College, for the kind notice 
they have been pleased to take of my Address. 

If the Address is calculated to exert any good influence, as you seem to hope it 
may, I have no right to withhold it from publication. 

Very respectfully. 

Your obd't serv't, 

D. D. BARNARD. 
Messrs. Rob't H. Pruyn, 
Wm. H. Steele, 
R, Van Amburgh, 

Committee, &c. 



ADDRESS 



The active members of the Literary Societies, be 
fore which I am called to appear on this occasion, 
are young men. Some of these are now about to be 
dismissed from the protection of the College with 
which they have here been connected — from the care 
and nurture of their excellent mother — ^with her bles- 
sing and her honors. Others of their number will 
follow in succession in due time. Life — that life for 
which what has here been attempted has been the 
beginning of preparation — is before them 5 life in so- 
ciety — active life — ^manly life — life to prove the value 
of the instruction they have received, and to try the 
strength of their principles. 

It is to such persons then that I am to address my- 
self at this time. I come to you, my friends, with a 
message from that stirring world into which you are 
about to enter 5 and I shall aim to deliver it with that 
simplicity and directness which alone become such a 
ministry. The world is ready and eager to receive 
you. It has smiles and promises laid up in store for 
you, and at the moment of your entering it, you will 
be welcomed with laughter and a shout. But be not 
deceived. There are those in it who will be forward 
to offer you their civilities 5 they will desire to lead 
you forth into flowery paths, where your feet may 
tread on roses of perpetual bloom 5 or they will ask 
leave to take you to the top of some pinnacle from 



which you will survey kingdoms that you may pos- 
sess on certain conditions. I pray you, be not hasty 
to follow any such. For there are those also in the 
world who have better things to offer you. They will 
make no noisy demonstrations of joy at your ap- 
proach 5 they do not dwell in rich men's mansions, 
nor move in robes of state or office, nor will they 
come out with pomp and a retinue to meet you. But 
they will watch your coming with a deep and af- 
fecting interest. They will not importune and soli- 
cit you, nor tempt you with allurements and promi- 
ses only to disappoint. But approach them and they 
will give you a hand, that you may feel the warmth 
of their hearts in its palm — a welcome that will as- 
sure you at once of their sincerity, and of their desire 
and ability to serve you. It is from these that my 
message to you comes — from the sober, the thinking, 
the intelligent, the men of mind and character — and 
too much honored am I to bear their commission. 
But so it is 5 and that message is a warning. They 
bid me break to you a little the way of the world 5 
open to you some of the difficulties that will lie in 
your path ; let you into some secrets, perhaps, worth 
knowing ^ give you some clew to the characters of 
those you may have to deal with 5 intimate to you 
from what quarter you may expect to be assaulted 
with blandishments, and whereabouts you will need 
the armour of all your virtue to protect you 5 give 
you some account of the present state of society, 
and what is peculiar about it, and what demands 
will be made upon you as members of it — on your 
talents and your efforts, to save yourselves, and 
save it, and promote at the same time your own 



and its advancement, your own prosperity and that 
of the generation and people amongst whom you 
dwell. 

In executing the responsible office here assigned 
me, the time will not allow me to indulge in any wide 
range of observation ; but I shall attempt to follow 
such a course of remark, while calling your attention 
to one principal topic, as may enable me to impress 
you, as far as my poor ability will go, with some ge- 
neral principles, and such an order and train of 
thought and reflection, as may stand you in good 
stead in hours of casual need, and, in some degree, 
supply the place and meet the want of more particu- 
lar and minute directions. Only, I beg of you, do 
not expect too much from me. An honest effort in 
your behalf, and which shall at the same time be an 
honest effort in behalf of society and of our common 
country, is all that I can promise 3 for the ability 
which shall characterize it, I can only furnish it in 
that humble measure according to which it hath 
pleased God to endow me with it. 

I address you, gentlemen, as scholars; and I shall 
take care to confine myself, in my remarks, exclu- 
sively to topics, the consideration of which belongs to 
you as scholars. Before I close I shall have occa- 
sion to speak of what I suppose to be the true uses 
of literature, and the true advantages of the literary 
character, and what particularly is required and de- 
manded of literature and literary men in this coun- 
try, and at the present day. To do this, in a way to 
make myself understood, it is necessary for me, in 
the first place, to advert at some length to the actual 
condition and tendency of things amongst us. This 



I am aware is a task of some delicacy ^ but ap- 
proaching it, as I am sure I do, with singleness of 
purpose, I shall hope to present my views in a way 
to avoid the slightest occasion of offence in any quar- 
ter. Holding, as I do, that the morals of any coun- 
try, and especially of a Republic, are inseparably 
blended with its politics, I shall be led to speak of 
the politics of this country 5 but I shall speak of them 
in a large sense only, as the politics of the whole 
country, and of all parties without distinction or dis- 
crimination, presenting them moreover in their moral 
aspects alone, and in no other, and certainly without 
the slightest regard to any party considerations or 
interests connected with them. 

We live, my friends, in a country, and at a time, 
marked with some peculiarities. They are, however, 
only the peculiarities which have resulted from the 
progress which our race has made in improvement. 
Man is essentially a progressive being, looking at 
him in his social state — and we never ought to regard 
him as possibly belonging to any other than the so- 
cial state, when we are considering his history, his 
condition and his prospects on the earth. In this 
view, it is no matter what individuals may have been 
in by-gone periods — in classical ages, and in the old 
time before them. In all ages there have been great 
men, great for their opportunities and their time 5 
but their history is important, principally because it 
is the history of humanity. Their age and country 
perhaps took their stamp of character from them, in 
which there was something novel and interesting. 
This was a stage in man's progress. They wrought 
out perhaps certain results, and the results may not 



have lasted long in the shape in which they were pro- 
duced, and yet here was another stage in man's pro- 
gress. Or they made some valuable and lasting dis- 
covery, or solved some difficult problem, or established 
some doubtful theory, or fixed some principle that be- 
fore was disputed and unsettled — and at every suc- 
cessful exertion of intellect and thought, another and 
another stage was gained in man's progress. Great 
events, in the providence of God, brought about 
through human agency, have marked the more im- 
portant points in this progress — ^the resting-places, 
and the starting-places for a new and more brilliant 
movement. 

The great point to which all things have tended, 
whether they have been efforts for mankind or against 
mankind — efforts to enlighten or efforts to brutalize 
—efforts to serve men or efforts to be served by them 
— efforts to oppress and enslave, or efforts to emanci- 
pate 5 and so of events and chances, whether they have 
been immediately auspicious or disastrous — the cause 
of joy and exultation, or the occasion of mourning 
and distress — the point to which all has tended has 
been the developement of the general mind, and the 
generation of the spirit of freedom. At last the time 
came, when the social system was set up on a new 
foundation. This was begun when the Pilgrims 
touched the Rock at Plymouth 5 and when all foreign 
and injurious interference with the free play of the 
system was forcibly struck off at the Revolution, it 
was fully established — thenceforward to stand or fall 
according to its own merits. This is our system, 
resting on a new basis, and reason enough why the 

2 



10 

condition of things amongst us should be marked by 
some peculiarities. 

The only rational theory of civil society with us, 
is that it is based on human nature — on the discov- 
ered, true and essential principles of humanity. In 
this view^, it is sometimes called an experiment, and 
as such it is a first experiment. It had never been 
tried before. Neither Athens, nor Sparta, nor Rome, 
at any period, furnished a precedent for it. All ex- 
perience in the business of government v^as rejected, 
as affording any thing fit to build upon. An entire 
new foundation was laid. It was found that all men 
are endowed with certain natural rights 5 that these 
rights are indefeasible and inalienable; that in this 
respect men stand towards each other on a footing of 
perfect equality, and owe to each other a perfect 
obligation to be forbearing and just ; and hence it fol- 
lowed of necessity, that in arranging the social sys- 
tem with a view to produce the result of government ; 
for the purposes of protection, and control, and mu- 
tual benefit — ^since the invasion of these individual 
rights is always to be apprehended— the only true 
method was to let men keep watch and ward over 
their own rights ; holding in their own hands the ul- 
timate and absolute power of protection and defence. 
And this is democracy in principle, and this is the 
democracy which was intended to be embodied in our 
plan of government, and carried out in practice 5 and 
it is a very different thing from what some men are 
pleased to teach, and from what many are made to 
understand, as being democracy. 

That we have found the true theory of government 
in these United States, I do not entertain a doubt. 



11 

And if our attempt is to be regarded as an experi- 
ment, and I think it is, it is not because this theory 
requires to be proved. That is estabhshed already, 
and is properly the result of reasoning from principles 
which cannot be disputed. Still our attempt is an 
experiment. It is an experiment to prove — not that 
our theory of government is the true one — nor yet 
that God has endovs^ed mankind with faculties which, 
properly cultivated, render them capable of self- 
government 5 for this is now proved, and has passed 
into a settled truth by what we have already done, if 
it was never established before — but our experiment 
is to prove, whether or not, even here, where it is 
claimed that there is more hope of complete success 
for the trial than there could be any where else on 
earth 5 whether or not, even here, human nature and 
the general mind have actually yet made such an ad- 
vance in knowledge, morals, wisdom and true dignity, 
as amounts to a settled, ascertained and established 
fitness for the control and direction of the common 
government, in spite of all the sinister and evil influ- 
ences to which they are, and are likely to be sub- 
jected. This, it seems to me, is the great question to 
be solved, and it is because of the important part 
which you, gentlemen, will certainly be called on to 
take in its solution, that I am thus particular in sta- 
ting it. 

For myself, on all this subject, I am perfectly re- 
solved now, as I think I am at all times, to keep back 
no opinions of mine, humble and unimportant as they 
may be, which I can suppose will be of any the least 
service to others — it being my only anxiety that I 
violate no just rules of propriety or decorum, by 



12 

seizing an unfit occasion to give them expression. I 
have stated already whai I think of our theory of go- 
vernment 5 that it is the true one, and is founded in 
the true and vv^ell estabhshed principles of human na- 
ture. I have stated what I think of man as a pro- 
gressive being considered in the social state, and how^ 
all events have vs^orked together for his advancement 
and his good. How can I doubt this great truth, 
when I reflect on what he was as a social being — -to 
say nothing of him in the place of his origin, or in 
the East generally — in Egypt ; and then in Greece 5 
and then under the Mistress of the World 5 and then, 
after his hibernation and slumber of ages, and his 
vernal resuscitation at the revival of letters, when I 
look at what he was in Continental Europe, and what 
he became in England, and is becoming elsewhere ; 
and compare him in all his previous states, and else- 
where generally in his present state, with himself here 
and now, in our own time and in our own land— when 
I think of all this, how can I doubt that man in his 
earthly and social condition is a progressive being, 
with capacities for improvement, and gradually, 
though slowly, rising above himself, throwing off his 
manifold burthens, with less and less of the animal 
about him, and more and more of the man, and pre- 
paring to take a high and noble stand as an intelli- 
gent, reasoning and reasonable being, enjoying liberty 
and happiness because fit to be free and happy, and 
shewing that excellent dignity of his nature of which 
he sometimes boasts. 

But then the question returns — not whether he has 
yet made the highest advance of which he is capable 
—certainly, I do not think he has — but whether at 



13 

the best, which I assume to be his condition here, he 
has yet reached that point of excellence that, having 
his right hand already on the helm, he will be able to 
hold it firmly, against all seductions and all assaults 5 
and if not against uncommon and unlooked for chances, 
yet at least on through the ordinary perils of the long, 
untried and difficult passage and way that lie before 
him. It is not a question concerning his capabilities 
— in these I have a steady faith, a confidence which I 
think no event or circumstance can shake— but it is 
a question concerning his attainments ; not a question 
how far he is able to go, but how far he has actually 
gone, and therefore a matter of fact to be ascertained, 
rather than a principle to be settled. And here is 
the point about which honest minds may, and do, 
doubt and differ. This is the point of our great ex- 
periment in politics ; this is just what remains to be 
settled by that experiment, and about which nothing 
certain can be known till the process shall be tho- 
roughly wrought out. 

I know very well, gentlemen, and you will know 
more of it probably than you now do, how odious a 
thing it is when a Republican doubts, and what a 
grateful service is rendered to the people when the 
song of security and peace is sung to them. Time 
out of mind, it has been common to soothe children 
with a lullaby 5 and this is the sum of their compli- 
ment,when persons are found busying themselves with 
persuading the people how safe they are. These per- 
sons are our Sicilian women who would charm us 
with their melodious voices, to forget our employ- 
ments and our duties, until at last we die of inanition. 
But I have a hope left, that a resolution, less deter- 



14 

mined than that of Ulysses and his companions, will 
serve us to pass them by, unheeding and unharmed , 
that we shall not need to stop our ears, or lash our- 
selves to our ship's mast, as they did, but only to hold 
fast to our integrity, and conquer by the strength of 
our principles. If the question concerning the suc- 
cess and permanency of our political forms be such 
as I have stated — a mere fact to be ascertained only 
on trial, just as we would find the strength of mate- 
rials to be used in the arts, after they had been sub- 
jected to some chemical or other process designed to 
impart firmness and durability, but the whole effect 
of which had never yet been tested and was unknown 
— a question of acquisition and attainment, the sum 
of which can only be found on a searching examina- 
tion — a question whether the people, computed by 
numbers, have yet made the requisite advance in 
knowledge and morals to make them equal to the 
burthen of civil government, notwithstanding the de- 
teriorations to which they are certainly liable^whe- 
ther there is leaven enough to leaven the whole lump 
— whether the precious ores are sufficient to consti- 
tute a coin which can take stamp as of standard value, 
after the full infusion of worthless and baser metal, 
which is ready and preparing to be poured in, no man 
as yet being able to say to what probable amount the 
alloy may reach — if such be the true question, then 
it seems to me that our prophets of smooth things 
should shew us under what commission it is that they 
are able to look into the night and darkness of the 
future with so clear a vision, and make us see and 
comprehend objects and conclusions which the natu- 
ral eye cannot discern, that at least we may be certi- 



15 

fied from which of the two great sources of invisible 
power it is that they derive authority to do these 
things. For myself, I would not have a feebler faith 
than becomes a christian man, but I am not willing 
to be left without a reason to give for such as I have. 
The logic too of these persons, it seems to me, is not 
more satisfactory than their prophetic teaching, 
though they are used to give us their conclusions with 
the same countenance of gravity and seeming confix 
dence with which they utter their predictions. It is 
short and comprehensive reasoning certainly, and a 
pity that it is not conclusive, that because we have 
endured for forty-five years, we shall therefore last 
forever. The misfortune is that men have died much 
past that age, and worms have eaten them ; and na- 
tions have perished at a much more advanced date of 
existence, and that from diseases generated in the 
greenest youth, or even born with them. What a 
considerate and wise man wishes to know at this day 
is— and it is a curiosity prompted by reasonable hopes 
and by a generous and large benevolence— it is, whe- 
ther this new and happier form of civil society which 
we have found is likely to be enduring, outlasting 
convulsions and revolutions if they shall come — not 
merely whether the American people shall form one 
nation or be broken into a hundred, which is itself a 
question of no mean interest 5 but whether, come what 
may, the substance of our new and admirable methods 
in civil government shall be preserved— whether the 
green spot we have reached is an oasis in the desert 
or a fertile country beyond it — whether the shore we 
have touched, we who are the true discoverers of a 
new world, and entitled, at least, to that honor, let 



16 

events turn out as they will, whether this strand be 
really that of the great main, of a vast and habitable 
Continent, or only that of a respectable Island in its 
neighborhood, which, however, all political geogra- 
phy will forever set down as properly belonging to it, 
though it cannot be called a part of it — this is the 
sort of enquiry to which the philosophic and benevo- 
lent mind turns and bends 5 and since there are things 
about it which cannot now be known beyond vague 
conjecture, aud which time, and trial, and examina- 
tion can alone reveal, I hold such a mind to be quite 
as wise in its doubts and apprehensions, as that of an 
other man in his boast of an unreasoned and unrea- 
sonable confidence which he must be a happy man, 
if he feel, and a weak one or worse, to say so, if he 
do not. 

The truth is, it is this eternal public boasting of 
ourselves, of what we are, and what we are sure we 
shall be, which makes us distrusted and too often des- 
pised by the world. But this is not its worst effect, 
nor by any means the reason for the consideration 
which I bestow upon it. It is its direct and immedi- 
ate influence on ourselves that I chiefly deprecate. 
Here is a systematic self-adulation, which causes us 
to swell with pride, while there is little to be proud of, 
makes us confident just when we ought to be cau- 
tious, and reckless when we should be watchful— 
which blinds us to every real danger, vitiates the mind 
in its purest principles, prepares us to credit our own 
lie, and fall as the victims of a delusion invented by 
ourselves. By all means, gentlemen, I would teach 
you to beware of it, and avoid it. 

But while I v/ould warn you against an over- 



17 

weening confidence in the success and permanence of 
our plan of civil polity, I am not less anxious that you 
should guard yourselves against all unreasonable and 
unmanly fear, and above all against the approach of 
any feeling of despondency. You must not unnerve 
and unfit yourselves for action — for, depend upon it, 
yours vs^ill be a life of action, demanding nothing less 
than the stretch of all your energies, if you mean to be 
found at all at the posts to which the time assigns you. 
My own belief is that we may be carried safely 
through. That there is yet virtue enough amongst 
the people to hold us together seems certain, because 
we are still held together 5 and I believe — though of 
this I insist that no man can be certain — that having 
a clear capital of intelligence and virtue that will yet 
bear considerable drains upon it, we may save our- 
selves from total bankruptcy, notwithstanding the 
pressure, if we will bestir ourselves in time, and act 
with that promptness, energy and skill which become 
men who find themselves in circumstances of peril. 
I think our fate rests with ourselves 5 at least I think 
that nothing can save us without an effort on our part. 
We must take measures to increase our solid capital 5 
and, as we cannot borrow, we must create. Demands 
will certainly be made upon us that cannot be met 
without considerable accumulation. We cannot trade 
always on credit, and keep off the day of reckoning 
and account forever, by boasting of our resources. 
We must make some sacrifices to put ourselves in 
funds. We must make exchanges of whatever we 
have about us, that is worthless to us or worse, and 
of all our negative properties, for active, substantial 
and available values. And above all we must sow and 

3 



18 

plant, and labor with our own hands, to make that rich 
virgin soil, with which it has pleased God to bless the 
mind and heart of this people, give us large and wil- 
ling returns, in harvests of smiling and cheering plen- 
ty. Add to this that we must observe a rigid and 
virtuous economy in all our habits, and take care that 
our mental and moral gains be not dissipated in wild 
and visionary speculations — Thus doing and acting, I 
feel the strongest conviction that we may save all 5 
and if it be otherwise, if we are destined to lose all 
else, at least we shall preserve our honor, so far as that 
is ever preserved in the failure and wreck of fortune. 

But it is necessary, if we would conduct ourselves 
with any degree of wisdom, that we should have some 
adequate notion of the difficulties that surround us, 
and some just idea of the best mode of proceeding to 
rectify mistakes, and bring our affairs into an amen- 
datory and prosperous train. And I take leave now 
to proceed to some considerations connected with so 
important a subject. 

The point, gentlemen, to which I wish chiefly to di- 
rect your attention at present concerns the manner — 
so grovelling and so debasing on all sides — in which 
the intercourse and correspondence with the people in 
this country is mainly conducted. And on this topic, 
I shall think myself at liberty, as I certainly feel 
called on, to indulge in some freedom of remark — the 
more so as the offence I complain of is one of common, 
I had almost said, of universal commission — so com- 
mon certainly that I am sure I shall not run the least 
hazard, when speaking of the conduct of politicians 
before the people, of having it supposed by any one, that 
I can intend to make the slightest reference either to 



19 

particular individuals, or to persons of any one party 
or school of politics rather than another. When I 
speak of politicians moreover, I desire to be under- 
stood as making a broad distinction betvv^een those 
w^ho take office, or enter into political life or political 
contests, vs^ith an honest and hearty desire to sustain 
w^hat they regard as valuable principles, and promote 
v^hat they regard as the highest good of the commu^ 
nity — ^whether agreeing or disagreeing myself vs^ith 
their viev^s — and those who trade and traffic in poli- 
tics, who fetch and carry, and plot and pander for 
party or for men, and who, while they seem to serve 
others or the public, have yet a shrewd eye on the 
main chance, and mean in the end only to serve them- 
selves. It is of this latter class of politicians infesting 
all parties alike — politicians by profession, trading po- 
liticians — of whom I am to be understood as speaking 
in this connection. And I remark of them in the first 
place, that it would seem, from their demeanor in 
public, as if they had really little else to do in life but 
practice the conned and labored arts of seduction, de- 
bauchery and ruin on all around them. The hope 
that is left of them is, that there are some symptoms 
of shame and modesty remaining, after all their pros- 
titutions ; because as yet, except in some notorious 
and abandoned cases, which however are fearfully on 
the increase— -they have the grace to condemn their 
own immorality in their own private judgments, and 
in their familiar and confidential communications. It 
is certainly a strange if not anomalous condition of 
things, however, that they should be willing to display 
their irregularities and crimes unblushingly before 
the vjorld, and never think of concealments or excu- 



20 

ses till they have escaped from public observation — 
that they should practice their naked exhibitions of 
disease and deformity in the eye of the noon- day sun, 
and in the face of a cloud of v^itnesses, and reserve 
their disguises to be put on, if at all, only in the closest 
retirement. This is indeed reversing the common 
modes of human conduct, and shews that there must be 
something w^rong in the stamina of the constitution. 

Men who come thus before the public, who thus 
converse openly with the people, the exhibitors of a 
kind of political legerdemain, cannot suppose that all 
observers are fools. However little credit they may 
be disposed to give the majority for discernment, they 
cannot help knowing that they stand before many in 
an attitude of ample and complete exposure. There 
are those among their spectators who are never de- 
ceived 5 who not only know in general terms that a 
delusion is practised, that the appearances presented 
are the result of art and trick, produced hj manual 
dexterity and some intimate acquaintance with the 
powers and influences of nature, but who also know 
the very secrets of the pretended magic, how every 
manifestation is effected, and could employ the same 
arts to produce the same results, if they were so dis- 
posed, and other arts perhaps of the same sort but of 
still more astonishing potency, to the confounding 
even of the Magians themselves. And yet, though all 
this is well known to the exhibitors, they never falter 
in their course, but conduct their experiments and 
employ their enchantments with as much gravity and 
composure as if there was nobody present to despise 
them. 

It is not difficult to account for this. In the first 



21 

place, like other professors in occult science, their 
faith in popular credulity is perfect. They make no 
more question of that, than they do of their own skill 
and power in the arts of delusion which they prac- 
tice. And then they have an abiding confidence also 
in the forbearance and criminal silence of those who 
understand them. This is the worst feature in the 
whole case, and I shall not fail to recur to it before I 
close. These worse than Egyptian sorcerers will 
never cease to be called for, and never cease to use 
their enchantments, until they suffer an open and man- 
ifest exposure before the people 5 until the means and 
instruments by which they operate are shewn to be 
powerless or are made so 5 until their serpent wands 
shall be plainly swallowed up by other instruments of 
impression and power, which, if not unlike them in 
outward form, shall be armed with an influence and 
an authority which God and the truth only can bestow. 
It is partly the design of our social and civil forms, 
while they secure a strict equality of rights, to pro- 
duce an approximate equality of conditions also — sa- 
ving and preserving however those distinctions and 
differences which will always prevail, wherever men 
are content to think that mind is worth more than 
muscle, and knowledge preferable to blank ignorance, 
and virtue better than vice. But there is here a the- 
oretic perfection, which it must be confessed it is diffi- 
cult to attain in practice ; and the more so, because 
while a few there may be who will strive to make it 
a reality, others there are, and probably the greater 
number, who will be found at war with it. Not being 
themselves exactly of the order of those who are fitted 
to lead in a society where wisdom, morality and man- 



22 

3iers are counted at what they are justly worth, and 
having at the same time a restless though a low am- 
bition, they go to work to employ other and more fa- 
cile modes of personal distinction and eminence. They 
contrive to overcome the natural gravity which by 
a universal law, would keep them forever weighed 
down to a sphere of comparative humility, by artifi- 
cial expedients. They resort to various methods, ac- 
cording to the bent of their particular genius or the 
means that are thrown in their way, to attract atten- 
tion, gain influence, or win applause. They en- 
shrine themselves in golden temples and set up altars 
of state and magnificence, for worship and sacrifice. 
Or they become oracular, and utter mysterious re- 
sponses, or answer only perhaps, like the statues at 
Antium, with a nod. Or, having a mind for a 
high flight, at whatever hazard, and however brief 
the time of their elevation, somewhat after the exam- 
ple of the modern aeronaut, they manage to gain and 
bag for their use so much of the light and volatile 
breath of popular favor as may serve to lift them for 
a while above the level earth, and quite out of the 
reach of all competition by any of the ordinary, safe 
and useful means of rising in the world. 

It is melancholy to say or think so, and yet we 
ought not to disguise from ourselves the too obvious 
fact, that society with us is habitually in a state of un- 
rest and disturbance. The ocean is scarcely more so 
just after a storm. If there was nothing in our condi- 
tion with which we ought to be satisfied, or if all this 
agitation in society was produced, as the atmosphere 
is shaken by tempests, only to purify it, we should|not 
condemn, but rejoice in it. As it is, we may flatter 



23 

ourselves that some small part of it may be referred 
to such an origin 3 but unhappily we are compelled to 
account for much, if not the most of it, by reference 
to other and less creditable causes. We cannot avoid 
noticing, vs^hatever disguises the matter is made to 
wear, that there is an antagonist and desperate strug- 
gle perpetually going on between man and man, and 
between party and party, which has something for its 
object verry different from principle or reform. Some- 
thing is evidently in view all the while besides the 
correction of abuses, the purification of manners, or 
the advancement of the public weal. We see evi- 
dently that it is not a struggle between the principle 
of good and the principle of evil, between the spirit of 
light and the spiritof darkness, between Ormuzd and 
Ahriman as they have it in the Mythology of the 
East. Men contend for mastery, but there is little of 
the grace and noble bearing of chivalry about the en- 
counter. They contend for precedence, and they would 
win by jostling each other from the course. They 
contend for the prizes that capricious fortune throws 
out in the turn of her magic wheel, and he is the best 
man who can empty a thousand pockets into his own 
without a consideration, in the briefest time and with 
the happiest address. They contend for place and 
stations of honor in their country's service, and they 
wear out their strength in worrying each other, while, 
on both sides, they scarcely conceal the grossness of 
their sentiments towards the proud and high-born 
mistress whose favor they solicit, and whose cause 
they would so gallantly espouse. In a degree, it is 
true, these things happen every where; but, if not 
worse, they are at least more noticeable here than 



24 

any where else, since they are in such shameful dis- 
agreement with the professions we make, and war so 
foully with the principles on which we claim to stand. 
And there is a sadder view of the matter still, and that 
is, that such a condition of things consists as little with 
our safety as it does with our honor. 

There are two principal modes by which individuals 
attempt to escape from that general equality of con- 
ditions which is the law of society with us. Wealth 
is one, and the other is politics 5 and together they 
form the main object and cause of those strifes and 
contentions with which the bosom of society is con- 
tinually rent. Of course, I shall not be understood 
to speak of the pursuit of wealth or politics, as a thing 
in itself to be condemned. Much less I hope shall I 
be suspected of that sort of radicalism, which would 
refuse to accord to the possession of property, and to 
high public station, the considerations of respect and 
dignity which ought always belong to them. In the 
pursuit of wealth, it is the means that are too com- 
monly resorted to to acquire it, and the wretched no- 
tions which are entertained of its value and uses, that 
are the objects of my abhorrence and contempt. And 
in the fevered and exhausting race for office and pow- 
er, it is the free, voluntary and almost universal sacri- 
fice of independence, honesty, honor and principle 
which is made to gain the advantage and to keep it, 
that is the occasion at once of the disgust and the 
alarm which I profess to feel. It is this latter evil, so 
monstrous and so full of peril, that I am chiefly con- 
cerned to exhibit and expose at the present time. 

Since the people are the source of political power, 
since it is to be received at their hands, and only re- 



25 

tained at their pleasure, the question instantly springs 
up in the mind of the dullest aspirant^ how, and by 
what means, can this many-headed but generally sin- 
glehearted being be best propitiated. It needs no pre- 
cept from classic Greece, and her "Old Man eloquent," 
to make a politician see how useful and important it 
is to understand the people 5 and a little consideration 
shews him that, for the mere purpose of success, there 
is no intrinsic difficulty in the subject which need de- 
ter the weakest from the attempt. The people are 
men, with the dispositions, passions and habits of men. 
Every individual brings in his contribution of human- 
ities to the common stock 5 and they are always the 
same in kind, though they may differ greatly in pro- 
portions and degrees. In working up the materials 
thus furnished, into that sort of composition which 
constitutes the body politic, the original elements un- 
dergo little if any change. They may easily be tra- 
ced in their new combinations, and detected in their 
new manifestations. Indeed it is, after all, only as- 
sociated mind, temper and habit, which the politician 
has to deal with, instead of the same qualities in a sin- 
gle individual ; and the effect of association and sym- 
pathy is, to clothe these qualities with strength and 
intensity, and sometimes with terrible energy, but not 
to change either their nature or their general direc- 
tion. These remain the same. And though human 
nature in the mass may seem at first a difficult instru- 
ment to play upon, yet in very truth it is as easy as 
the same instrument in the most simple and unasso- 
ciated form. It has no new stops, and it requires on- 
ly common skill to command them to' an " utterance 
of harmony." As Hamlet says of the recorder : " 'Tis 

4 



26 

as easy as lying ; govern these ventages w^ith your 
fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, 
and it w^ill discourse most eloquent music. Look you, 
these are the stops." The truth is, the character of 
an individual may be, and often is, a difficult study, 
while that of the multitude may be quite simple — at 
least if the object in the latter case be only to know 
enough to be able to move and to seduce. To know 
that, naturally, men are jealous of superiors 5 that they 
envy the fortunate 5 that they hate distinctions, how- 
ever essential or deserved, unless shared or created by 
themselves 5 and that in their plan of levelling, which 
they call equality, it is almost wholly a process of de- 
pression with scarcely an attempt at elevation 5 and 
to know that, in general, they are at the same time 
credulous , easily imposed on 5 apt to be deceived 5 
susceptible of flattery ; vain ; trusting to appearances 
where there is no reality 5 and dazzled and captiva- 
ted with any shows got up to astonish or amuse — « 
here is a brief and imperfect summary, yet containing 
enough for the manual of any shrewd politician who 
might choose to take the field with a vade mecum of 
such comprehensive and excellent morality. 

We see at least that the temptation to push forward 
to the experiment, when no other guide or authority 
than this, and only a moderate share of prudence and 
sagacity are demanded, must be nearly if not quite ir- 
resistible—too much so to make it at all wonderful 
that we find it in fact often unresisted. This politi- 
cal being who is so coveted and caressed by public 
men and by parties, is no better or wiser than them- 
selves, whatever solemn asseverations they may make 
to the contrary ^ and that they know too as well as 



27 

We can tell them. This being may be fairly repre- 
sented by any average individual among themselves 
— any one v^hose knovs^ledge and acquaintance with 
principles, with public affairs and the world, whose 
judgment and opinions, prejudices and passions, tem- 
per and manners, sense, sentiments and feelings, do 
not rise above, or fall below, the humble measure and 
standard to which the majority attain— only to make 
such an one a just and worthy representative of what 
the people are, we must give him, in our conceptions 
and estimate, a strength, a power, a torrent and tem- 
pest of energy both in his opinions and passions, and 
a physical potency also, such as never belong to per- 
sons, and can only be exhibited by numbers. We the 
people are such, let politicians tell us what they will ; 
and as for our wisdom and our morals, why the best 
that can be said with truth is, that we are wise when 
we are wise, and moral when we are good ; and it is 
as easy to judge both of our wisdom and our goodness, 
as it is to judge of the wisdom and goodness of any indi- 
vidual whose acts and principles are known and un- 
derstood. And we are insulted therefore with a 
gross attempt at base and degrading adulation, if we 
had sense enough to see it, when we are told that we 
are always wise and good ; always right and correct 
in our principles, our opinions and our measures 5 
right in the objects we have in view, in the means we 
use, and in the sentiments we entertain 5 right in our 
views of public policy, and the common good 5 right 
in our estimate of men as well as of things 5 right 
when we condemn and denounce, and when we ac- 
quit and applaud 5 right in theory and right in prac- 
tice ; right in our philosophy, and right in our moral- 



28 • . 

ity 3 right always and right in all things, and so right 
in every thing, that we cannot be wrong in any thing. 
Oh if this be so, what a convenient and admirable 
standard of right and wrong, and of wisdom and folly, 
the world has at last in us the people ! 

That this solemn foolery is established in common 
practice in this country, and, what is worse, is sanc- 
tioned, if not by open approval, yet by general silence 
and a smile, will be denied by no one who knows the 
truth, and regards it. Of course this is now a part 
of our public morals, and it becomes all men to con- 
sider how such a state of things consists with prospe- 
rity, with security — with whatever we ought to ex- 
pect or hope for our country or our race. And it is 
in this point of view, that I desire to press the subject 
on your attention. My fear is, and I not only confess 
it, but with this and every fitting opportunity I would 
proclaim it, if possible to infect others with it as deep- 
ly as it is felt by myself, that, through the prevailing 
influence of politics, we are as a people undergoing a 
complete and disastrous revolution in morals. I am 
afraid we are fast losing, if we have not already lost, 
the original purity and brightness with which we set 
out J that our manners, our sentiments and our virtue 
are falling into easy, consenting and accommodating 
habits J that our patriotism is becoming narrow and 
selfish, degenerating into blind, vulgar and corrupt 
attachments ^ that vicious and degrading sentiments 
do not shock us as they once did 5 that we are getting 
familiar with the taint that is in the air, which there- 
fore no longer offends the sense, and now gives us no 
warning of the pollution in the midst of which we 
dwell, and the poison we inhale. It is natural cer- 



29 

tainly, that as youth ripens into manly years, some- 
thing of that innocence which thinks no evil because 
it knows none, should be dimmed a little of its white- 
ness and its lustre. We do not expect to find in man- 
hood the virtues merely of simplicity and uncorrupted 
ignorance , and we care not how full and perfect 
knowledge may be, if there be sound and settled prin- 
ciple to regulate thought, and direct and control con- 
duct. But it is to be feared that we have not attained 
our majority, without having essentially soiled the puri- 
ty of the general mind, and contracted a positive gross- 
ness of thought and feeling, while we have been gaining 
knowledge and experience. Indeed, it is impossible it 
should be otherwise, as we must be satisfied if we con- 
sider the manner in which the business of our politics 
is too often conducted. 

In the first place, public men, and those who are 
seeking preferment by popular favor, seem, on all 
hands, to have come to the fixed conclusion, that there 
is one only mode of certain or probable success, and 
that they adopt without scruple and without disguise. 
They pretend to believe in the perfection of man in 
the concrete , however orthodox their faith may be in 
the doctrine of personal depravity. They do not un- 
dertake to explain so great a mystery, or ever to ren- 
der a reason for their confidence 5 and though it has 
never been revealed to the spirit, or manifested to the 
sense, yet they believe — at least, so they take the most 
untiring pains to assure us. But in all this, they act 
on the avowed principle that the people are weak, if 
they are not wicked 5 and that it is an easy matter 
to deceive, and keep them in a state of thorough delu- 
sion, simply by a course of skillful and unscrupulous 



flattery and falsehood. Besides this, their conduct 
clearly implies, whatever they may think of the pre- 
sent purity of the people, that they have no very ex- 
alted notion of their capabilities in resisting the con- 
tamination of bad examples and vicious sentiments. 
They fear nothing from the rebukes of offended vir- 
tue 5 they hope every thing from the plastic nature of 
the materials w^hich they intend to mould to their pur- 
poses. It is necessary, hovs^ever, that they should be- 
gin, not vs^ith protestations only, but v^ith prostrations 
also 5 and it is w^ith no christian temper, that they 
humble themselves, in order to be exalted. Body and 
spirit, they bow^ dovs^n before the multitude, falling 
low at the foot of their great idol, and offering them- 
selves and all that they possess, intelligence, indepen- 
dence, virtue, manners, manhood, all, as a just and 
reasonable sacrifice. They come to hold truth in ut- 
ter contempt, and practice falsehood almost without 
an effort at concealment, and wholly without shame. 
Indeed it is not uncommon to see cases, where it is 
too plain, that it is deliberately intended to challenge 
admiration for the adroitness and skill with which the 
means and instruments of corruption are employed 
and used. Ambition itself, if it were not shameful to 
call it so, sometimes glories in taking so oblique and 
tortuous a direction. It affects the movement of the 
serpent, more than that of the eagle 5 but at the same 
time courts observation and the notice of the public 
eye, with as covetous and eager a spirit, as if it were 
used to mount instead of creep or crawl 5 and it would 
suffer a deeper disappointment even than want of suc- 
cess could inflict, if being successful, it failed to at- 
tract universal attention, and gain universal credit 



81 

for the manner in which its end and object were ef- 
fected — for the brilHant and resistless power it had 
displayed to charm, to lure, and to destroy. 

I do not like quoting the authority of foreigners 
against ourselves — and especially I hate appealing to 
a book in which I find much to condemn. And yet 
on this subject I think we are too fastidious, and that 
we owe it to our vitious habit of bestowing everlast- 
ing praises on our own social and political condition, 
that we are so averse to hear what intelligent and 
philosophic observers from other countries may hap- 
pen to think of us. When travellers, returning home, 
vent their spleen upon us, let us despise them 5 when 
they mistake us, let us pity them ; but when they 
would reveal us truly to ourselves, let us have the 
courage to face the mirror they present to us, and, 
correcting if need be, by our own candid reflections, 
any casual distortions we may discover, contemplate 
ourselves calmly in the image so far as it may chance 
to be faithful. A very recent writer on this country, 
one who is understood to stand in intimate relations 
with the struggling democracy of her own country, 
who came therefore to observe for them and returned 
to bear testimony to them, says of us : " Scarcely any 
thing that I observed in the United States caused me 
so much sorrow as the contemptuous estimate of the 
people entertained by those who were bowing the 
knee to be permitted to serve them." If there be 
much truth in such a remark as this, it may seem a 
small matter to some, but in my way of thinking, it 
savours of a coming doom, nearer at hand than we 
may be willing to believe, unless averted by some de- 
cisive effort. And, for my own part, I recognize 



32 

lineaments here which I think can no more be denied, 
than a man could safely deny his identity in the pre- 
sence of those who have known him in daily, familiar 
intercourse from his cradle. 

I confess, after all, my opinion is, that the people 
are not generally so thoroughly deceived and deluded, 
by certain professions which are made to them, as 
some politicians undoubtedly suppose. I should have 
better hopes of them if I thought they were, for in 
that case I should think the evil were easily correc- 
ted. In regard to persons, and in regard to particu- 
lar measures, there is no doubt the people are liable 
to the grossest impositions j and this is certainly a 
thing of no trifling importance in the consideration 
of our general prosperity 5 and yet I cannot help pla- 
cing its consequence far below that which belongs to 
the question, whether the people as a body have so 
far profited by the teachings of five-and-thirty or forty 
years that they may now be understood as prepared to 
yield, and actually yielding, a willing assent and sanc- 
tion to that system of philosophy in politics, which 
assumes it to be a first principle that public affairs 
can never be effectually served with simple honesty, 
nor without the practice of a certain amount of cor- 
ruption. This I do not quite suppose 5 I do not sup- 
pose that there is any settled philosophy in the public 
mind on the subject 3 but I do think that public cre- 
dulity is not quite so blind and unwitting as some 
simple politicians, who profess a great deal of honesty 
and practice very little, are apt to imagine. I think 
there are impressions on the public mind, falling little 
short of convictions, picked up from long observation, 
and adopted after some, but no very profound reflec- 



33 

tion, which are exceedingly unfavorable to the recep- 
tion and nurture of good principles. The people are 
beginning to think it is really so, that politics is a bu- 
siness of human concern which is wholly excepted 
out of the common law of morals 5 and perhaps the 
more so here, where it is a chief business of life, and 
where the entire body of the people share the respon- 
sibility if there be any. At the worst, it is a case of 
communis error 5 and that men are apt to think as 
good to justify a positive wrong, as it is to excuse the 
neglect of some inconvenient or absurd regulation of 
the municipal power. They may never have heard 
of Nicolas Machiavel and his policy ; or of Robert 
Walpole and his principles 5 and yet if the thoughts 
which float in their minds could be arrested and pre- 
sented in any palpable form, we should discover, I am 
afraid, that their sentiments are not widely different 
from those on which the latter person acted, and which 
the former taught in his doctrines of The Prince. 
'' Good faith, justice, clemency, religion," said Machi- 
avel, " should be ever in the mouth of the ruler 5 but 
he must learn not to fear the discredit of any actions 
which he finds necessary to preserve his power." It 
is a favorable and hopeful consideration certainly that 
such sentiments are not yet openly avowed by them 5 
but I must be permitted to doubt whether the feeling 
be not extensively indulged. To this extent I am 
sure it is 5 that large numbers of them deem it sim- 
ply absurd to look any longer for honesty in politics, 
or in political men 5 they feel satisfied that it is not 
to be expected, and deem it, therefore, idle to dwell 
upon it as if desirable. On this point of honesty, 
however credulous in every thing else, they are 

5 



34 

strongly skeptical. They confide very little in all 
the pretensions that are made of being governed by 
such a principle. They expect the statesman to be 
corrupt 5 they expect the politician to be crafty, and 
subtile, and insincere ^ and if he be the man of their 
choice, or of their party, they vs^ill support him, as if 
they believed him to be fair and true as he may pre- 
tend to be — leaving him to please himself with the 
notion that his success in playing off a false charac- 
ter on them has been complete, while in truth he is 
much more deceived than they are. Indeed, I am 
by no means certain, since they naturally love a frank 
and bold man, and hate a coward, that a certain de- 
gree of ingenuous confession on the part of a politician 
would not commend him to temporary favor much 
more effectually, than if he were to continue to cover 
himself with all manner of thin and penetrable dis- 
guises. 

' I know very well that this must sound like ungra- 
cious language. But when I am about to recom- 
mend courage to others, and that in a case where no- 
thing short of the most dauntless bearing can answer 
any good purpose, I shall take care that I do not spoil 
all by myself setting an example of cowardice. I am 
not much concerned to know what may be the reflex 
action of my opinions on myself But I may claim 
at least, by way of anticipation, that I hold the people 
in no lower estimate than those do, who practice all 
their lives long on sentiments and opinions, if they 
would confess them, which cast on the people infi- 
nitely more discredit, than any which I entertain. 
And in truth I think it will be found in the end that 
1 differ from such persons principally in indulging 



m 

an unaffected though considerate trust, and a confi- 
dent though trembling hope, in human nature, which 
they never feel 5 or if they ever do, which neverthe- 
less they take the most effectual means to quench 
both in themselves and in all others- Certainly, I do 
think the people chargeable with the offence of favor- 
ing a degree of corrupt action in politics 5 but I think 
this is a lesson they have been slow to learn, even un- 
der the instructions of very competent and zealous 
masters 5 that it is partly through want of correct 
knowledge, and partly through want of reflection, 
they have done it 5 that they rather submit to it, un- 
der the notion that they are bowing to some stern 
decree of inexorable destiny, than take to it kindly, 
with an appetite and a relish for it ; that there is bet- 
ter stuff in them than that which has been so suc- 
cessfully developed in the schools where their ideas 
have learned to shoot 5 and that juster methods of 
teaching and better examples will bring out sound, 
generous, noble, just, saving qualities — such as I know 
to be in them. 

And this, gentlemen, is the issue to which I have 
desired to bring your minds at last. I would inspire 
you with a noble, but enlightened zeal in behalf of 
your fellow men 5 and I would do this, by such full 
and free disclosures of the case you have to deal 
with, as my limited acquaintance with the subject 
will enable me to make, — nothing extenuating, and 
setting down nothing in malice — shewing you at 
once the discouraging difficulties which you must en- 
counter, and what the ground is on which alone you 
can build any confidence of success — bringing the 
case of your patient before you, as I would present 



36 

that of a beloved child to a favorite and skillful phy- 
sician, and, v^hile I tell you plainly that I think him 
very sick, and while I give you the history of his 
malady w^ith some account of its causes and its pro- 
gress, and am faithful to omit no symptom which I 
deem unfavorable, pointing you, at the same time, to 
his excellent constitution, to his strength to endure 
disease, to his natural tenacity of life, and in every 
way endeavoring to inspire you with that strong hope 
of recovery which I myself feel, and without which 
your efforts would be likely to be feeble and alto- 
gether unavailing. 

I look to the educated and literary class in the 
country, to save it. No matter who commands for 
the voyage, if we cannot find pilots who understand 
the channels we must pass, with their windings and 
their soundings, who know where hidden dangers 
lurk and how only we may avoid them, and who will 
aid us with their skill and their counsel to bring us 
into port, still I would hope on, but I should think 
the odds most fearfully against us, and not much to 
choose between going down in the deep sea, and 
waiting a little to be stranded in shoal water where 
we may perish no less miserably and certainly, though 
close upon the land. But there is more to be done 
than merely to conduct the business of navigation — 
to set the canvass, and hold the helm, and study the 
chart. We must take care that the ship be well 
found and well provided for the adventure, and espe- 
cially that we be not caught in the mid ocean with 
Unsound timbers in her. In ordinary times, there 
can never be any great difficulty in carrying on the 
legitimate and proper business of government. Not 



37 

that this business can, at any time, when our affairs 
are in the best train, and the weather is the calmest, 
be cheapened down to the value of low and uninfor- 
med capacities, as some seem to suppose 5 but what 
I mean is, that we have much less occasion to trouble 
ourselves about the manner in which the actual ad- 
ministration is carried on, whether it be in the hands 
of one party or of another party, of one set of men or 
of another set of men, or whether one or another sys- 
tem of economical measures be pursued, than we 
have to take care of our principles and our morals. 
Depend upon it, administration will never be much or 
long at war with these. It will take care of itself, or 
will be easily taken care of, when these are right ; 
and if these are wrong, men of administration and 
measures of administration, however excellent, will 
not avail us much. 

Now it is here, in the matter of principles and mo- 
rals, and chiejfly in what may well enough be called 
the morals of politics, that the services of the educa- 
ted and literary class in the country are demanded. 
Gentlemen, I would not have you politicians 5 that is, 
I would not have you make a trade of politics, or look 
solicitously for political elevation. You can serve 
your country better, with surer success, and with vast- 
ly more honor. And there is no profession or occu- 
pation, to which your tastes and inclinations may as- 
sign you, which would not consist perfectly with such 
a duty, or which would be materially interrupted by 
it. Give your hearts, warm and honest, to your coun- 
try and your fellow-men. Cast about you, each for 
himself, for the best mode of serving them. You have 
treasures of learning, and if you are wise you will 



38 

have greater — offer these. You have been trained to 
public speaking, and to the use of that mighty instru- 
ment, the pen, and practice will give energy, and 
strength, and polish. Here is the possession of tre- 
mendous power over human thought and action — 
offer this. Cultivate habits of association and union 
among yourselves, and with all who follow similar 
pursuits, and whose learning, tastes, temper, and eleva- 
tion of character make them congenial spirits. There 
is strength and encouragement in association. There 
is power in combination and union. Let educated 
and literary men every where band themselves to- 
gether, and together labor for the public welfare. 
There is no danger from this sort of class spirit, and 
this kind of aristocracy. The more we can have of 
it the better. When mind leads in a community — 
mind trained in the ways of virtue, and devoted to the 
cause of virtue — liberty is safe, and human happiness 
is secured as far as it is attainable on earth. God 
has bestowed intellect on man for this very purpose 5 
and in its employment he rises into some faint like- 
ness to the Deity himself. Cultivate mind then, and 
cultivate morals, and cultivate letters, and cultivate a 
community of feeling and interest amongst your- 
selves with all the rest. Propose to yourselves noble 
objects, and that will give a noble character to all 
your thoughts and all your efforts. No man can be 
self-seeking and mean spirited, no man can be sordid 
and grovelling who labors for his country and his 
kind. It belongs to learned and literary men to form 
and stamp the character of the age. On this point, 
the examples of classic periods must never cease to be 
quoted and insisted on. In many things we are bet- 



S9 

ter than the best of Greeks and Romans ever were — 
Heaven has forsaken us if we are not. We do not 
ask them for their rehgion, nor their pastimes, nor 
their systems of ethical philosophy ; but still we may 
learn from them much that is indispensable to know. 
We may learn from them why letters and the arts 
ought to be cultivated, in what manner, for what 
principal ends and objects, and what controlling and 
tremendous influence they may be made to exercise. 
There was with them a broad-cast purpose, which we 
might do well to imitate. There was a scope and com- 
pass in their views comprizing all the present, and as 
much of the future as could be grasped, with at the 
same time a distinctness and directness of object, 
which, without at all weakening, gave their works a 
diffusive character, and prepared them to be as per- 
manent as they were liberal. We are apt to think of 
Lycurgus and Solon as statesmen and rulers only ; 
they were authors, and impressed and led the age by 
their writings. Solon particularly devoted his life to 
literature. He owed his success as a general, in a 
memorable war, to his more splendid success as a 
poet, for it was a single poem of his own that infused 
that spirit into the Athenians before which Salamis 
fell. It was his power to wield language and letters, 
joined to a shrewd acquaintance with affairs, which 
gave his legislation such eminent success, and so much 
celebrity. The Bards of the Heroic ages with their 
hymns and invocations, and Hesiod with his Theogo- 
ny, and Homer with his immortal poems, created and 
systematized a popular religious creed for a great, 
long-enduring, and wonderful people, giving anima- 
tion to what were before only symbols, and souls to 



40 

sensible things, and personality and consciousness to 
the invisible powers of nature. The power of litera- 
ture, in what we are apt to think its lightest form, 
is strongly illustrated in that beautiful and familiar 
allegory, which represents the moral efficacy of the 
lyrics of Orpheus. What, indeed, was Greece in her 
best days, but what her men of letters and her artists 
made her 5 and what else is it in modern days, and 
what else will it be in all coming time, but an ac- 
quaintance with her works of taste and genius, which 
gives, and will give her so conspicuous a place on the 
map of the earth, and so large and distinguished a 
share in the consideration and admiration of the 
world ? 

But it is the direct and home effect of Literature 
which I am most concerned at present to consider 5 
and this in the country referred to was complete. 
Literature was prepared for universal influence, and, 
in the want of the easy means of communicating with 
the public at large which we possess, they contrived 
other, and very effective ways of reaching the ear 
and the heart of the community. They resorted to 
Rehearsals 5 to Literary contests in public 5 to free 
Dramatic representations ; and to their Symposia. 
And they took care, let it be well remarked in pas- 
sing, while composing expressly with a view to arrest 
and impress the entire public mind — the people as a 
body and in numbers — not to lose the evident advan- 
tage which high and noble thoughts, exquisitely po- 
lished in the terms employed to convey them, must 
always give. The great nations of antiquity more- 
over, let me say, afford another sort of testimony, 
more melancholy but not less convincing than that 



41 

which the period of their prosperity and glory pre- 
sents, to the excellence and the power of letters. It 
is the voice they utter at the season of their decline 
and fall. It is common to speak of the decline of 
classic literature, as having been caused by the pre- 
valence of luxury, the corruption of taste and morals, 
the recurrence of civil commotions and of foreign 
wars, and the oppression and loss of liberty. To my 
mind, what have thus been set down as causes, it were 
more just to regard as consequences and effects. As 
surely as darkness comes when the sun sets, so surely 
will a nation decline, and gloom cover it, when its 
literature comes to be neglected, or corrupted. It 
was so with both the great nations referred to. Lite- 
rary men began to relax their efforts. Men who might 
have been literary waxed fat, and fared sumptuously, 
and slept when they should have labored 5 or they 
contented their ambition by taking some shorter cut 
to the mastery over the minds of men, and became 
tyrants when they should have been teachers and 
guides 5 or they became unfaithful stewards of the 
mysteries of learning and letters, and instead of ap- 
pealing to the chaste and delicate sensibilities, senti- 
ments and feelings native in the mind and heart of 
man, they aimed at qualities antagonist to all that is 
elevated in him, and plied him with sophistry, sub- 
tility, affectation, and idle gaudery — and henceforth, 
and cause enough it was, that luxury prevailed, and 
taste and morals were corrupted, and civil commo- 
tions and unsuccessful foreign wars recurred, and 
liberty was lost. 

Gentlemen, I repeat again ; I would not have you 
politicians ; and though you must never avoid the la- 



42 

bors and responsibilities of office, when called to it by 
duty and the voice of your country, yet would I have 
you aim at higher service. Govern the governors, 
and rule the rulers. Let your influence come from 
the voice, and from the pen. Serve your country, 
and your age, and mankind, with your learning, and 
your genius, and the force and teaching of your ex- 
cellent and consistent example. Every one of you 
can do something. If you cannot write, you can read. 
If you cannot model the taste of others, you can cul- 
tivate your own. If you cannot create literature, 
you can encourage it. But you can do more than 
this 5 I should run little hazard in saying that there 
is not one of you who cannot aid directly, by his con- 
tributions, the cause of learning and letters. A small 
portion of time, a remnant, a scrap, carefully set 
apart and employed daily in this service, reserved, or 
stolen if you please, from necessary business and the 
carkings and cares of life 5 very much may be done 
by it. There is no need of exclusive devotion to 
literature 5 we want your contributions only, be they 
ever so few or small. There is no necessity, as there 
is no occasion, for hasty composition. It is better to 
write well, than to write much. If Virgil employed 
twelve years in elaborating the ^Eneid, or as he him- 
self is said to have expressed it, in licking his cubs 
into shape and proportion, — which, by the way, might 
sound much better in his pure Latinity than it does 
in our vernacular, — and at last, when he found death 
approaching, would have committed the manuscripts 
to the flames as an unfinished production, if he could 
have found any body complying enough to bring them 
to him for the purpose ; surely, gentlemen, after such 



43 

an example of patient toil, and considering too the 
rewards that have followed it, you may find opportu- 
nity enough, in the unemployed moments and hours 
of a whole life time, to furnish something, if it be not 
in bulk the fiftieth part of the ^neid, which shall aid 
materially if not equally, in forming and sustaining 
the body of the general mind. A single sentence, a 
single line, a single thought, or fragment of thought, 
struck off daily, polished, and set down for use, like a 
shaft for a Parthian bow, pointed, fitted and feathered, 
and laid away in its appropriate quiver — this alone, 
if you can do nothing more, will give you, in the lapse 
of brief years, an armoury of literary materiel^ with 
which you may take the field in the confidence of cer- 
tain and honored success. And at least, in this way, 
hoarding all your life-time and giving away nothing, 
you may finally leave the world a legacy, that may 
seem a trifle to you, but for which you shall have a 
monument in ten thousand grateful hearts, and the 
blessings of their children for generations that cannot 
be numbered. 

But some of you at least, will be able to bring out 
more immediate results 5 and all of you may co- 
operate powerfully in the work to which the time calls 
you, I have already told you something of the pe- 
culiar features, circumstances, and tendencies of this 
time : and you can judge for yourselves in what quar- 
ter your services are most needed. I point you to 
this work, as being scholars 5 and because being 
scholars, you are almost of necessity, in that associa- 
tion, gentlemen. It is a work for men of mind, and 
for men of manners too. Neither qualification can 
be dispensed with. You are to be preachers of mo- 



44 

rals, and you are to form the manners of men also^ 
for they are morals 3 and you cannot teach others, 
being yourselves untaught. Undoubtedly, the work is 
for scholars, for men whose minds are refined and 
polished, and their manners through their minds. It 
is to this class and order of persons only that the task 
of forming, refining and elevating the general mind 
and manners, can be committed. No other class can 
do it. At present, the general mind, and the general 
manners, and public morals, are in the hands of poli- 
ticians. It will not do to leave them there. Public 
men and political parties are an overmatch in the de- 
partment of ethics, for the clergy, who are now nearly 
the only public teachers whose doctrines war with 
theirs. Indeed, the clergy, in their capacity of re- 
ligious teachers, hardly enter at all into this particu- 
lar field of morals, the morals of politics — into the 
consideration of politics as a moral subject. But it 
will not do, I am sure it will not do, to leave this sub- 
ject to take care of itself, or to leave it to the effect 
only of an abstract religious faith, practical and of 
universal application as I know that faith to be ; and 
if the morals of politics may not be taught from the 
pulpit — and I must be allowed to say I do not see 
why not- — yet the clergy belong to the association of 
scholars, and as literary men they should not and will 
not refuse to bring in their contributions to this suf- 
fering cause. The influence of government and of 
politics on morals in all countries is immense 5 in this 
country it is nearly overwhelming and irresistible. 
This influence, from being in hostility, must be gained 
over to the side and the cause of morals. And this 
is a work for scholars. Literature can do it, and no- 



45 

thing else will 5 and in this work, gentlemen, I in- 
voke your aid and' co-operation. 

And the grand requisites for this service are truth, 
fidelity, and courage. Without these you will be 
wholly unfiirnished and unfit for this conflict. I have 
told you already that our politicians, by which I mean 
those who trade in politics, of whatever faith, com- 
plexion or party, are bold and confident in their mea- 
sures and movements, chiefly because they rely, first 
on the credulity of the many who they suppose do not 
understand them, and next on the silence of the few 
who they know do understand them. Now, as be- 
longing to the few who understand, I call on you to 
break this criminal silence. I speak from an unwil- 
ling conviction when I say, that there is less of per- 
sonal independence and freedom of thought and 
opinion in this country, than in any country on the 
hither side of semi-barbarian despotism. Public 
opinion— the opinion of numbers— and the opinion of 
party within its sphere — on whatever subject, in what- 
ever manner formed, and whatever may be its stamp 
and tendency — is nearly omnipotent 5 and those who 
know it to be wrong, oppressive, and perilously wick- 
ed, and whose business it is to correct it, bow before it 
in tame, servile, ignominious submission. I call on 
you to burst these fetters, and be free. It is for you, 
and such as you, to instruct the people, and not be in- 
structed by them. It is for you, and the like of you, 
to form and lead public opinion, and not leave it to 
be moulded and fashioned after patterns furnished by 
those who mean to use it for selfish and dishonest pur- 
poses. I hope there is not another country which the 
sun shines upon, barbarian, savage or civilized, where 



46 

less of truth is spoken according to an honest convic- 
tion of what it is, than in this. I call on you to cast 
off this slavish fear, and endeavor to bring back, and 
domesticate, and protect truth-telling dispositions and 
habits amongst us. I call on you to brave the dis- 
pleasure of a sovereign who dares to be a tyrant, 
though he surround himself with terrors — armed 
though he be with the Bastile to incarcerate mind, 
and shut up offensive thought and opinion in dark, si- 
lent chambers and gloomy cells 5 or with the Guillo- 
tine to cut off the heads of all obnoxious sentiments as 
fast as they arise. Brave these terrors, and oppose 
them, and, by opposing, end them. Do not fear the 
people, but confide in them. They are never delib- 
erately wrong and oppressive, but when they fall into 
bad hands. Teach them, whether they will hear, or 
whether they will forbear. You will find in them— 
I am sure you will — an innate love of truth and of 
honesty. Pericles found it so in his time , he was 
never more truly popular, Cicero says, than when he 
opposed the will of the populace and declaimed against 
their favorites. I commend his example and his 
wisdom to you, gentlemen 5 and I take my leave of 
you with a prayer, such as I think a patriot mother 
might breathe for her sons — that God will give you 
courage to be honest, just and true. 



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